The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this Thursday, the Senate moved toward passing the contra aid package. President Reagan accused Nicaragua of lying about having troops in Honduras. The Sixth Fleet withdrew from the Gulf of Sidra. And Israeli planes bombed Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary, we have three main focuses and an essay on the NewsHour. First, on the heels of this week's confrontations with Nicaragua and Libya, we examine the U.S. role as the world's policeman with former Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and former U.N. Ambassador Donald McHenry. Then Charlayne Hunter-Gault looks at what some people say is the Reagan administration's attempt to rewrite the Constitution. We talk with one of the researchers involved in the discovery of a new virus that may hold the answer to AIDS. And essayist Jim Fisher finds a most unusual group of Kansas musicians. News Summary

WOODRUFF: The Senate moved closer tonight to passage of President Reagan's aid package for the Nicaraguan rebels, the contras. Late this afternoon senators voted 2-1 to kill a Democratic alternative that would have emphasized diplomacy rather than military pressure. The author of the defeated plan was Democratic Senator Jim Sasser of Tennessee. After the vote he was asked about it.

Sen. JAMES SASSER, (D) Tennessee: I think it does say that the United States Senate is not going to put this administration under any strict requirement to negotiate a settlement to our differences with the government of Nicaragua. I think that is most unfortunate. Before we let loose the dogs of war in Central America, I think the Senate owes it to the American people to send a message to this administration that we want diplomacy exhausted; we want every measure within reasonable means taken to reach a negotiated settlement.

LEHRER: President Reagan today accused Nicaragua of lying about its offensive in Honduras, and he told a Republican fund-raising meeting in New Orleans the Sandinista government's action was a slap in the face at U.S. House members who voted against contra aid last week.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: One opponent of aid to the freedom fighters was quoted after the vote as saying, "I hope the Sandinistas take it as a sign of peace and friendship." Well, the Nicaraguan communists took the House vote as a sign, all right: they invaded the territory of Honduras with about 1,500 heavily armed troops and then they lied about it. This Sandinista offensive is a slap in the face to everyone who voted against aid to the freedom fighters, thinking it to be a vote for reconciliation. We live in a dangerous world. If peace is to be maintained, and if our country is to be secure, we must have the courage to face facts and act. The lives of the Nicaraguan freedom fighters, the fate of Central America, is to a large degree in the hands of the United States Congress.

LEHRER: There were no reports of fresh combat in Honduras today. State Department spokesmen in Washington said the fighting between Nicaraguan troops and the Hondurans and contras had tapered off. They said Honduran forces were mopping up and securing the area. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Honduras said about 1,500 Nicaraguan troops were still trapped in the country.

WOODRUFF: U.S. ships pulled out of waters disputed with Libya today. President Reagan made the announcement, and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said the three-day exercise had been in every way a successful operation. The President told Congress in a letter dated yesterday and released today that if the Libyan attacks do not cease, "We will continue to take the measures necessary to exercise our right of self-defense." The notification was done, White House aides said, to carry out the President's policy of informing Congress consistent with the War Powers Act, without triggering the part of the act that requires him to report when U.S. troops are in hostilities abroad. The President telephoned his congratulations to the commander of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and before that audience at a Republican fund raiser in New Orleans he responded to yesterday's Libyan calls for Arabs around the world to mount suicide attacks against the U.S.

Pres. REAGAN: The United States will not be intimidated by new threats of terrorism against us. We are aware of intensive Libyan preparations that were already under way for terrorist operations against Americans. Mr. Qaddafi must know that we will hold him fully accountable for any such actions.

WOODRUFF: The ships of the Sixth Fleet will continue to operate in the central Mediterranean for several days. And there was word from the Pentagon today that the U.S. and West Germany have signed an agreement under which Bonn becomes the second American ally to join research on President Reagan's Star Wars program. The first country to sign on was Britain.

LEHRER: Israeli planes today bombed Palestinian bases near Sidon in southern Lebanon. Ten people died and 22 were injured, according to police. Israeli officials said they were in retaliation for a rocket explosion in an Israeli schoolyard. We have a report from Peter Vickers of Visnews.

PETER VICKERS, Visnews [voice-over]: The Soviet-made Katusha rocket crashed into a school playground in the northern Israeli town of Kiriyat Shomonah. Minutes earlier the playground had been packed with children playing basketball, but at the time of the attack the area was clear and a major disaster was averted. However, it was the most serious cross-border attack for four years, and the teacher and three students who were wounded were the first civilian injuries since Israel moved into Lebanon in 1982. Just two hours after the Kiriyat Shmona attack, six Phantom jets screamed in over the Palestinian refugee camps at Ein Hillneh near Sidon. The jets swooped over the camp twice, and it was on the second run that most of the deaths and injuries occurred. Israel has said the bases were targeted because they were being used by Yasir Arafat to rebuild his power base in southern Lebanon.

LEHRER: Melbourne, Australia, was also the scene of a bombing today. A car bomb exploded in front of police headquarters, injuring 22 persons -- 10 police officers and 12 others. No person or group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. We have a report from Red Harrison of the BBC.

RED HARRISON, BBC [voice-over]: The bomb went off without warning in a stolen car parked outside police headquarters, and the blast shook buildings and shattered windows for 200 yards. It also set fire to an empty police vehicle. And moments later, another car exploded on the other side of the street. People doing their Easter shopping were showered with broken glass and burning pieces of metal. In the chaos of smoke and debris, police at first believed there'd been two car bombs and possibly more, because another four explosions were heard in the next half hour. They've now established, with the help of army experts, that the heat of the first explosion and the burning police vehicle ignited the petrol tanks of cars parked nearby.

LEHRER: And there was an explosion at the U.S. Embassy in downtown La Paz, Bolivia. Embassy officials said a small bomb made mostly of a dynamite cap was thrown from an adjacent building and exploded on the roof. There was little damage, no injuries, and as yet no arrests.

WOODRUFF: A scientific discovery was announced today that may be a major advance in the prevention of AIDS. Researchers say they have discovered a virus that could be the long-suspected bridge which brought AIDS from animals to humans. It was found in people in West Africa by research groups from Harvard and the Pasteur Institute in Paris who have been working separately. The virus itself does not give people the disease, and that could help in developing a vaccine against AIDS.

LEHRER: And finally in the news today, some good news on the U.S. trade deficit. It was only $12.5 billion in February, the Commerce Department reported. That's a 24 decrease from the previous month and was credited mostly to a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar abroad.

WOODRUFF: That ends our summary of the news of the day. We turn now to a look at the broader implications behind this week's Nicaragua and Libya confrontations with two former top State Department officials. Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on Attorney General Meese's brand of judicial activism. We interview a researcher involved with the discovery of a new virus that may help unlock the secrets of AIDS. And finally, essayist Jim Fisher with some words about an unusual group of Midwestern music makers. World Policeman: LEHRER: The Senate moved toward approval of $100 million for the contra guerrilas in Nicaragua today, the latest act in what has been a busy four days of hurly and burly for U.S. foreign policy. The Sixth Fleet withdrew from the Gulf of Sidra today with a "well done" from President Reagan, having shown U.S. power against Libya. State Department spokesmen said the fighting had tapered off in Honduras, as Honduran troops, with the help of U.S. helicopters and pilots plus 20 million U.S. dollars, mopped up in their fight against the Nicaraguans. These almost simultaneous U.S. actions in two different parts of the world have triggered debate about how to exert U.S. military power and influence. It was at the center of today's debate in the U.S. Senate over aid to the contra guerrillas, the cause of the military actions in neighboring Honduras. Here's a sampling of that debate as broadcast live on radio with drawings by artist Elaine Stendar.

Sen. EDWARD KENNEDY, (D) Massachusetts: There cannot be any question in the minds of any individuals here in this body, certainly there's no question in the minds of millions of Americans, that we are moving closer and closer and closer to the very direct involvement of American combat forces. That's inevitable, Mr. President, with the escalation of military assistance for the contras and the militarization of our policy in Central America.

Sen. JESSE HELMS, (R) North Carolina: The issue here is do we really believe in freedom, do we really want to help those who are fighting and dying, not merely in Nicaragua but in Angola, in Afghanistan, everywhere in the world that people have that yearning, as Solzhenitsyn put it, to be free?

Sen. JAMES SASSER, (D) Tennessee: I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the question before the United States Senate today is a question of war and peace. Will the administration commit to peace before it commits to war?

Sen. MARK HATFIELD, (R) Oregon: If there is a parallel between our nightmare in Southeast Asia and the nightmare we're attempting to create here today, it is that we will virtually destroy the nation and the people we set out to save. That's the bottom line. That's what it will take to win this game. It will take a large piece of us. It's doing that now, and every farm we bomb, every school we burn, every innocent person who perishes in the crossfire, robs from us another strand of moral fiber.

Sen. JEREMIAH DENTON, (R) Alabama: On the one hand, we have a choice between giving aid to satisfy a clear need for supporting those who wish to preserve their freedom and to support our own national interests, and on the other hand, to procrastinate further, which is to choose dishonor. If we choose dishonor, we will inherit war and risk defeat.

LEHRER: We continue that dialogue now with Lawrence Eagleburger and Donald McHenry. Mr. Eagleburger was the number-three man in the State Department in the first Reagan term. He is now president of Kissinger Associates and he joins us from the studios of public station WRLK in Columbia, South Carolina. Mr. McHenry was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Carter administration. He is now a professor of diplomacy and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington.

Secretary Eagleburger, is the issue freedom or dishonor?

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER: Well, I think the issue is perhaps freedom; I'm not sure dishonor is the right other word. I think the issue, particularly in Nicaragua right now, is whether we can prevent the increase and the strengthening of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Central America, geographically close to us and therefore a threat to us.

LEHRER: Do you see it that way, Ambassador McHenry?

DONALD McHENRY: No, I think the issue is whether the United States is going to try to resolve a very serious problem by peaceful and diplomatic means, or whether we're going to resort to force. The President is choosing force.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, assuming the Senate approves contra aid, the House rejected it last week -- Mr. Eagleburger, what kind of message is that sending to -- not only to Central America but to the rest of the world?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: You mean the fact that we have had one house reject and one accept?

LEHRER: Right. Right.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: I think at this point it shows the world and Nicaragua that we're slightly confused on the issue. But the fact of the matter is, as the debate has shown, we are confused on this issue. I think it has to be debated. I think in the last analysis probably the President will get the money out of the House as well.

LEHRER: Mr. McHenry, why this confusion? Why such strong words that we just heard from the Senate and we are hearing from the two of you about this issue? What's gone wrong as far as consensus in foreign policy is concerned?

Amb. McHENRY: Well, consensus in foreign policy broke down a long time ago, and I think this is a demonstration of it. This hasn't been a very elevated debate from the very beginning. The patriotism of people has been questioned. We have things like the use of this incident in Honduras, without putting the incident in its full perspective, as a major issue. I don't believe that this has been a debate which is worthy of the American public, certainly not worthy of the President and worthy of the Congress.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Mr. Eagleburger?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: No, basically not. You know, I think that perhaps the debate could be more elevated, I suppose. But I think these comparisons, for instance, earlier with McCarthy and so forth -- I lived through the McCarthy period, this is nothing like that. I think by and large they've tried to come to grips with the issues. I think, as I said, it is a difficult issue for the American people in the aftermath of Vietnam and so forth. We are confused about when we ought to use force. Maybe it could be a more educated and enlightened debate, but by and large I think they've tried to cover the issues.

LEHRER: Mr. McHenry, on the issue of the use of U.S. military power, etcetera, was the President right to send those U.S. planes, the helicopters and the U.S. pilots and the $20 million, immediately to Honduras in this Nicaraguan incursion episode?

Amb. McHENRY: Well, as you have -- as I'm sure you've reported, the facts of that incident aren't entirely clear. We in the first instance had the Nicaraguans -- the Hondurans denying that this kind of attack had taken place. We've had all kinds of figures with regard to the number of people involved, and we know that this is one of some 300 incidents which have gone on for some time. And in the whole -- in the process, this whole process, there has been given very little emphasis on the fact that the United States is supporting a group which is using Honduran territory to attack a sovereign country. I don't find it unusual at all that this kind of skirmish is going to go back and forth. I would think that the Nicaraguans surely have not, however, demonstrated themselves to be the best tacticians in the world.

LEHRER: Mr. McHenry, what's the harm or the potential harm in doing what the U.S. did, in terms of introducing U.S. helicopters and pilots and the money?

Amb. McHENRY: Oh, I think it's just another indication of a failure on the part of the United States to pursue a peaceful and a diplomatic settlement of thisquestion. If you go around the area, you discover that none of the countries around that area, with the possible exception of Costa Rica, supports the policy which the United States has been following. They suggest that the United States ought to give genuine support, not lip service, but genuine support to the Contadora process. The fact is that we give lip service to that process, don't really support it, because at heart the United States is unwilling to put up with the existence of a Sandinista government. We wish to overthrow that government, and the sooner we get around to saying that the better off we all are.

LEHRER: Is that so, Mr. Eagleburger?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: I think part of the problem is that in fact the administration is not sure in its own mind what it is it's trying to achieve. That's a point I'll concede. I think there is a step short of overthrowing the Sandinista government which most in the U.S. government, probably including the President, prefer at this point. We need to remember that the Sandinistas have not remained within their own borders for years. They are certainly a major cause for much of the difficulty in El Salvador for a long time, in terms of their support for guerrillas there and so forth. But I will concede to you that there is some confusion, I think, in terms of what is it the administration's principal objective is. I think it should for this time being, at least, be to try to convince the Sandinistas that they need to negotiate with the contras, that they need to keep themselves within their own borders. But it may well be, as Ambassador McHenry says, that there are some in the government who will prefer something more than that.

Amb. McHENRY: I think this is the reason, if I may say so, why the Congress is very suspicious of the President's offer to engage in negotiations for 90 days, and then to resume or start military assistance. No one in his right mind believes that the President is going to reach an agreement in 90 days with the Contadora -- with the Nicaraguans given his current policy, because his current policy will require them to surrender themselves.

LEHRER: Okay.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Don, if I may say so, I think that the answer also partly is that the Nicaraguans, the Sandinistas, won't reach an agreement with us if we negotiate for six months or six years. Some of this emphasis on diplomacy as if it can stand alone, and as if it can be a solution by itself without the Sandinistas knowing that there are other things available to the United States to make its point, it seems to me to be quite artificial. And the Congress and Senator Sasser trying to say that, well, we must try diplomacy first, is to say you must stand on one leg. I think that there's a two-part process here.

Amb. McHENRY: I don't know what point we can make when we all know that there are very real limitations on what force the United States can use, unless the President is willing to come clean on that issue too. Is he really meaning simply $70 million of support, or is it really that this issue is so important to the United States that we're going to have to commit our force?

LEHRER: All right, gentlemen, let's broaden the debate a minute here to Libya and the other power issues. And we take as our text these words from President Reagan's speech today in New Orleans.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Let me make some broader points. First, freedom of navigation is oa vital interest to all free nations, the lifeblood of our prosperity and our security. In many parts of the world we regularly make clear that we do not recognize territorial claims contrary to international law. Some of those who often blame America first have suggested that the presence of our fleet was a deliberate act of provocation. The truth is, this was the seventh time our fleet has operated and had those exercises, crossing the border sometimes into the Gulf of Sidra. Out of our 45 ships in the maneuvers, only three were on the other side of that so-called line of death. It was Qaddafi's establishment of an illegitimate line in the Gulf of Sidra that violated international law, just as Qaddafi has routinely violated the peace of his region, the borders of his neighbors and the safety of innocent citizens around the world. Therefore the United States will continue to defend the basic principles of law, free navigation and international security. And I've had one rule from the very first day in office. We will never send our young servicepeople anyplace in the world where there is danger, without them understanding that if somebody shoots at them, they can shoot back.

America and our allies in the cause of freedom have never been perfect, but we have nothing to apologize for. In these last six years we've witnessed one of the greatest expansions of democracy in the history of our hemisphere. If we have the integrity to do what is right, freedom will not only survive, it will triumph.

LEHRER: Mr. McHenry, what do you think the Sixth Fleet accomplished in the Gulf of Sidra?

Amb. McHENRY: Oh, I'm sure we gave Mr. Qaddafi a very bloody nose. We established a point which I think the rest of the world agreed with already, and that is that these are open seas. I'm not sure we proved our devotion to international law. The President loves international law now, but he didn't love it when he was mining the harbors in Nicaragua and running away from the World Court. I think we probably simply have given the rest of the world the feeling that we're a great big bully.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Mr. Eagleburger?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: It may come as something of a surprise that I don't. I think we have established in Mr. Qaddafi's mind -- and I think this is the important point -- that it is not free to take us on, it is not free to blow up airports, and that at some point, some way, somehow, we'll make him realize that it's not free. I'm -- you know, the point about international travel or use of the international seaways and so forth -- okay, it's important. But in my judgment, it is the fact that we told Mr. Qaddafi that, you know, some way, sometime, somehow, he's going to have to pay for some of these actions of his. I think that's worth doing. At the same time, I would not argue that it is some great event that will change the course of history. I don't think it will.

LEHRER: What do you make of that, Mr. McHenry?

Amb. McHENRY: Well, I think Larry is simply saying that the reason the President went in there had nothing to do with the seas but had something to do with the terrorism policy. We wanted to teach Mr. Qaddafi a lesson. And I'm not sure that it's going to do that. On the contrary, all the statistics we get coming from various tourist agencies indicate that Americans are now afraid to travel around the world, and we have found ourselves imprisoning ourselves. I'm not sure Mr. Qaddafi has learned any lesson at all.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Don, those people were afraid to travel before we went into the Gulf of Sidra, for heaven's sakes. They were afraid to travel for good reason, because the terrorists had done what they've done in that area over the course of the last year.I don't think you can blame the President for those attitudes at this point.

Amb. McHENRY: No, I would say that we've -- Larry, over a period of time, we've developed a policy which has created this attitude in the minds of the American public, and the polls show it. They support the President's action in regard to the Gulf of Sidra, but they also indicate that they are much more concerned about traveling now.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Of course they are, with good reason.

LEHRER: Yeah. Mr. Eagleburger, what about Mr. McHenry's use of the word "bully" a moment ago to depict what the United States was up to in Libya?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Well, you know, I'm afraid that a part of the world will see it that way because we are big and he is small. The fact of the matter is, however, that because we are a superpower with world responsibilities we have felt over a long period of time more constrained than he has when he doesn't have those responsibilities. He's been able to act quite freely and quite cruelly, I think. And I think while others may look at it as bullying on our part, I think it is nothing at all that even resembles that.

LEHRER: Mr. McHenry?

Amb. McHENRY: Well, I would agree with Larry in terms of Qaddafi's actions. I think in this -- in both of these instances, in this instance and in Nicaragua, we have actors who are hardly worthy of a great deal of praise. And therefore when we act against them, there's a tendency to be immediately supportive. But I believe that we ought to think about what we're doing. And in each of these instances, it seems to me the United States does not come off as a great superpower. A superpower is much more responsible than that. A superpower doesn't have to go around demonstrating its manhood and strength.

LEHRER: Is that the issue, Mr. Eagleburger?

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: No, I don't think the issue is demonstrating its manhood and strength. I think the issue is demonstrating that our patience at some point runs out, and when we are pushed there is a point beyond which we will not any longer be pushed and we will respond. And in fact if we fail to make it clear that there's a limit beyond which we will be pushed, we are going to see more and more problems with people like Mr. Qaddafi, because they will feel they can get away with more and more.

Amb. McHENRY: The problem is not response. If we were responding to a specific incident and we were targeting that incident, no one objects to that. This is a general response, done out of the frustration of the administration because it couldn't respond to the other actions earlier. And we've been trying to do it for a very long time, and there is a skepticism, not only in the United States but around the world, with regard to why we took these series of actions.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Don, if I may, there I just totally disagree. I suspect there is no doubt in Mr. Qaddafi's mind that he knows why we did what we did in the Gulf of Sidra, although I recognize that the administration has described it in another way. I think Mr. Qaddafi knows why we were there; I think he knows why we shot at him when he shot at us first. I don't think there's any doubt in his mind, and I think it's very clearly linked to earlier actions on his part.

Amb. McHENRY: I don't -- I'm sure he does know why we did it. But I don't think it's going to affect his actions.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: That's a different question. I can't say that it will. I don't know; we'll have to see.

LEHRER: All right. Gentlemen, thank you both, Donald McHenry, in Washington, and Lawrence Eagleburger, in Columbia, South Carolina, tonight. Thank you both very much.

Sec. EAGLEBURGER: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the NewsHour, Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on what some are calling the Reagan administration's effort to rewrite the Constitution. We talk with a medical researcher about AIDS and the new link between a virus and the deadly disease. And essayist Jim Fisher takes a look at some of the sounds of Kansas. Changing the Charter?

WOODRUFF: We turn now to the Constitution and the judicial activism of the Reagan administration. Attorney General Edwin Meese has been leading a campaign to convince the court and the public that a strict standard should be used to interpret the Constitution. This effort has sparked a bitter and public dispute in the legal community. Today the argument spilled over to Harvard University, where some legal scholars are protesting a decision to give an award to the attorney general. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has been looking at the controversy over the Justice Department's record of judicial activism; she filed this report.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The debate centers on this document, nearly 200 years old. Because it is a written Constitution, everyone agrees on what it says. The argument is over how to read it, and that's a debate that's been going on ever since the Constitution was ratified.

[voice-over] But the Meese attacks on recent court rulings this past summer brought it front and center more forcefully than it has been in over 25 years. In his speeches Meese called for a return to "a jurisprudence of original intention." In plain English that means interpreting the Constitution literally, as it was intended by those who wrote it in 1787.

EDWIN MEESE, Attorney General: The approach that this administration advocates is rooted in the text of the Constitution as illuminated by those who drafted it, who proposed and who ratified it. It understands the significance of a written document, and seeks to discern the particular and the general principles that it expresses. Those who framed these principles meant something by them, and those meanings can be found and they can be understood and they can be applied.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The reaction to such a call was swift and sustained.

BURT NEUBORNE, ACLU: What I think is clearly wrong in Meese's approach is the notion that the intent of the founders is some sort of easily discoverable phenomenon, that you just look to a book or do a little research and you find out what the intent is, and all these courts that have been deciding cases have somehow been ignoring a signpost that they should follow. The truth is, the notion of the intent of the founders is an enormously complicated concept.

Atty. Gen. MEESE: Where there is a demonstrable consensus among the framers and ratifiers as to a principle that is stated or implied by the Constitution, it should be followed. Where there is ambiguity as to the precise meaning or the reach of a constitutional provision, it should be interpreted and applied in a manner so as to at least not contradict the text of the Constitution itself.

Mr. NEUBORNE: When you look into what the intent of the founders are, you find that the founders were as divided on these issues as everybody else is, and they used general language precisely because it was impossible to reach a final resolution of something as fundamental as what does free speech mean. That's something that every society and every generation interprets in large part for itself.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: By fall the debate was in full swing. Even members of the Supreme Court, who don't normally speak publicly on controversial issues, joined in the debate in their fashion. For the first time, a Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, attacked an attorney general by name, saying he didn't know his history. And Justice William Brennan called it arrogant to pretend that anyone could know exactly what the framers had in mind on questions that have come up in recent times. He said, "We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can, as 20th century Americans%%%% The ultimate question must be: what do the words of the text mean in our time" Even Justice Rehnquist, regarded as an ideological soul brother to Meese, cautioned against public attacks on the courts. But it was the liberal critics who were the most vocal, complaining that Meese's call for legal purity was a smokescreen.

LYNN PALTROW, abortion rights lawyer: This isn't really a debate about framers' intentions or constitutional analysis that Meese seems to characterize it as or wants us to believe it is. It is about a particular social agenda.

JULIUS CHAMBERS, NAACP: I think it's serious enough for the country to become concerned about the assault on the Constitution and the effort to rewrite a history that has opened up opportunities for individual and group rights.

Mr. NEUBORNE: It's a debate about power. It's a debate about how much power the majority should have, how much protection the minority should have, what the relationship between the strong and the weak in the society is. It's really a debate about the fundamental nature of this society.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: In the law schools on college cEmp%ses around the country, a generation of the nation's law professors joined the debate. Here in the shadow of the court at Georgetown University, University of Chicago law professor Michael McConnell argued that Meese was right.

MICHAEL McCONNELL, University of Chicago: The question before us is whether Attorney General Meese's views on constitutional interpretation are within that legitimate range, and it seems to me that the answer to that is clearly and obviously yes. In fact, Attorney General Meese's views are the orthodoxy; they are the conventional wisdom.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Harvard professor Laurence Tribe disagreed.

LAURENCE TRIBE, Harvard Law School: Anyone who comes forward with a claim of orthodoxy that purports to eliminate any range of meaningful choice, who says he's found the Holy Grail, the objective path to the true intention of James Madison and the other framers, ought at least to be suspect of having a hidden agenda.

Prof. McCONNELL: The Constitution is not just an empty vessel in which to pour your own views. What will you say to the economically oriented judge who comes to you and says, "Professor Tribe, you've persuaded me that I am free to read into the Constitution my own theories of justice. Therefore, I hold that rent control, the Occupational Health and -- Safety and Health Act and any marginal tax rates over 35 are unconstitutional"?

Prof. TRIBE: It seems to me that that very process of generalization is what bothers Mr. Meese when and only when he doesn't like the outcome.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Demonstrations like this one make clear that this is not some legal scholar's rarefied debate. Last year the Meese Justice Department was in court trying to overturn the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision upholding a woman's right to have abortion. That ruling has been attacked by the attorney general as being constitutionally wrong. Terry Eastland is the Justice Department's chief spokesman and one of the architects of the Meese strategy.

TERRY EASTLAND, Justice Department: The Constitution itself does not contain within its four corners the right of a mother to have an abortion. Now, by the same means, we don't think that the Constitution contains within its four corners either the principle of pro-life, that is to say that the court should have decided the case the other way. Where the Constitution does not speak, in our form of government -- and this is what we argue -- the policy should be set by the people and their legislatures.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: As recently as 1983, the Supreme Court affirmed its decision. But it has not ruled yet on the Justice Department's challenge to its constitutionality. Attorney Lynn Paltrow of the National Abortion Rights Action League argues that the word "liberty," mentioned at least three places in the Constitution, including the Preamble, supports the court's decision.

Ms. PALTROW: Even if we were to play the game and say let's look at the framers' original intent, whether we look at the 14th Amendment or the First Amendment, the Constitution in three different places mentions liberty and in no place does it define that liberty. It was left to the courts ad -- to interpret what that means, to give it meaning -- meaning according to the current circumstances. All of the liberty guarantees that our Constitution provides have little meaning unless a woman can choose to control her reproductive life.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The First Amendment deals with separation of church and state. Meese and his critics agree that the First Amendment's establishment clause prohibits Congress from establishing a national church. The belief Meese argued was that the Constitution should not allow Congress to designate a particular faith or sect as politically above the rest. Where they disagree, and what sparked the debate, was what Meese went on to say. We quote: "But to have argued, as it is popular today, that the amendment demands a strict neutrality between religion and irreligion would have struck the founding fathers as bizarre. The purpose was to prohibit religious tyranny, not undermine religion generally." Justices Brennan and Stevens took issue with that interpretation; so did Burt Neuborne of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. NEUBORNE: What the attorney general would like is to see the government thrown into the battle on the side of religion generally as long as it favors all religions equally. And that is inconsistent with the purpose of the establishment clause. It was inconsistent with 30 or 40 years of Supreme Court precedent.

Mr. EASTLAND: First of all, you have to ask the question of whether precedent always should be controlling. The fact of the matter is that there are precedents that can be wrong.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The Fourth Amendment, with its bar to unreasonable searches and seizures, led to the Miranda rule in 1965. That rule requires that a police officer warn a suspect of his right to a lawyer before questioning. The Meese Justice Department doesn't like Miranda. This year the High Court ruled that failure to give the warning would not taint a later confession given after the warning. Critics viewed that as part of an administration-inspired watering down of Miranda. Critics like Neuborne say they are worried that the attack on Miranda could ultimately return the country to an era when there was widespread abuse by police.

Mr. NEUBORNE: There was physical abuse, there was psychological abuse. Many of the people who were taken into custody were questioned in ways that either frightened them or tricked them into making statements that later would be used against them.

Mr. EASTLAND: The problem with Miranda is that it took away what had been the traditional focus of the court, whether, that is, a confession was voluntary, whether it was given without -- not in a coerced setting. And it substituted for that voluntariness test a procedure that has more or less disabled the police from asking questions.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The 14th Amendment gave us the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision banning segregated schools in 1954. More recently that same amendment was used to uphold affirmative action and voting rights cases. But today the Justice Department attacks that use, saying the Constitution is color blind.

Atty. Gen. MEESE: The idea that you can use discrimination in the form of racially preferential quotas or ratios, even to remedy the lingering social effects of past discrimination, makes no sense in principle. In practice, it is nothing short of a legal, moral and constitutional tragedy. Counting by race is a form of racism, and racism is never benign and never benevolent.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Among those taking exception to Mr. Meese's interpretation, Julius Chambers, head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Mr. CHAMBERS: Mr. Meese prefers to ignore history, the history that demonstrates the intent that the Congress had in passing the amendment, the history that shows that simply removing a barrier doesn't allow that person to enjoy equal opportunities as the Constitution seeks to enforce, and that it would simply perpetuate the type of society that Congress, in passing the 14th Amendment, was seeking to correct.

Mr. EASTLAND: As to group remedies having been sanctioned in history, I think the other side is often selective in their history. Today we have law teachers, legal groups who file briefs and cases who say, oh, the 14th Amendment means you can make distinctions based on race and that you can classify people according to what color they are and confer benefits. I think people have often a Humpty Dumpty view of the Constitution when they simply pour whichever meaning they wish to have in it in order to see their own social policies advanced.

Mr. CHAMBERS: I see it as an effort to rewrite the Constitution in a way that would provide preference or preferential treatment for white males to the exclusion of women and other minorities.

Mr. EASTLAND: Well, by no means is that our approach. We're not trying to benefit one class of society or another. We're interested in having a framework in which the American citizens can govern themselves. It's rather a case where we are seeking the application of mutual principles that this society can govern itself by.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: I asked the administration's critics whether or not they thought President Reagan's election victories convinced him that he had a mandate to try and change the framework in which Americans govern themselves.

Mr. NEUBORNE: The fact that he has that mandate, if he does, and the fact that a majority of the people want him to do it, doesn't give him the right to do it in our system. And what's so frightening about Meese's position is that he wants to take that mandate and then at the same time erect a theory which eliminates the power of courts to provide any kind of real check. And the name for an executive with a mandate without anykind of a check at all is a tyrant.

Mr. EASTLAND: I'm not sure I know what a mandate is, but I do know that the American people elect presidents and they expect those presidents to carry out the positions on which the individual is elected. People knew Ronald Reagan's positions on these things for years, and they twice elected him, the last time by an overwhelming margin. And it would seem to me natural that this administration would try to pursue the goals of this President.

HUNTER-GAULT: The administration acknowledges that its strategy involves taking aim at the judiciary. One seventh of the federal judgeships are vacant, and the Supreme Court is aging. Critics are worried about court packing, but students of the court argue that the fact that federal judgeships are appointments for life has more than once through the years foiled such attempts by liberal and conservative presidents. They like to cite Teddy Roosevelt's comment about his appointment of Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said, "I could have carved a stronger backbone out of a banana." AIDS: New Hope?

WOODRUFF: Scientists appear to be one step closer to unraveling the mystery of AIDS today. Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic announced separately that they have discovered a new form of the AIDS virus, which may ultimately help in developing a vaccine against the deadly disease. The announcement came first from researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and just hours later from a competing team of scientists from Howard -- excuse me, Harvard University. We hear more about it from one member of the Harvard team, Dr. Phyllis Kanki.

Dr. Kanki, what is so significant about this discovery?

Dr. PHYLLIS KANKI: Well, as you know, the AIDS disease is caused by a virus, the AIDS virus, which we call HTLV-3, LAV. And up until this time the closest relative to that virus was a monkey virus, and specifically a virus that was found in African green monkeys. Our new discovery is a human virus, and that virus was found in healthy West African people, and that virus appears to be somewhere in between the African green monkey virus and the lethal AIDS virus.

WOODRUFF: And what is the significance of that? How does that bring you any closer to developing a vaccine, or does it truly?

Dr. KANKI: I think that it will certainly aid our efforts in developing a vaccine, and I suppose the approach will be in two different ways. One, we'll be comparing the viruses and making the most out of the differences in those two viruses. We know that the new virus, which we call HTLV-4, has been only found in healthy people, and that may mean that that virus is less capable of disease. And we can try and study how that virus then differs from the AIDS virus and unlock some of the mysteries as to why the AIDS virus is so deadly.

WOODRUFF: So even though this new virus that you've discovered in healthy people doesn't cause AIDS, it has properties, is that correct, that may lead you to discover --

Dr. KANKI: Correct. I guess the second aspect to its significance for a vaccine development is the similarities. The similarities include the fact that the viruses, both HTLV-3 and HTLV-4, infect the same blood cell in the body, the T-4 lymphocyte. And secondly and most importantly, there are many proteins of the viruses that appear to have common regions, and that will be very important in a practical way to develop a vaccine.

WOODRUFF: How much hope should AIDS victims take from this?

Dr. KANKI: I think that it means that we're increasing our efforts every day and that we certainly have a new approach to vaccine development because of this new virus.

WOODRUFF: But I mean, should they look -- should they think, well, in a matter of months now there'll be a vaccine? Or, I mean, are we still talking years or what? I mean, is it possible --

Dr. KANKI: I think a time course would be too premature at this point to predict.

WOODRUFF: Why?

Dr. KANKI: I think that in general all of these things have moved as rapidly as one might have expected, but we have to go through quite a bit before a vaccine can actually be put into people.

WOODRUFF: So it's just wrong for someone to assume at this point that in a matter of months, years, whatever, that there will be a vaccine. It's just that this is a good sign in that direction.

Dr. KANKI: I think it's a step in the right direction, yes.

WOODRUFF: How did your team from Harvard happen to isolate this particular -- were you looking for it, or were you looking for the AIDS -- were you looking for an AIDS-related virus? Was that it or what?

Dr. KANKI: Well, we had described and isolated the virus from the African green monkeys about a year ago. And as I mentioned before, that was the closest relative to the AIDS virus. Because those monkeys are found throughout Africa and in areas where AIDS cases have been seen, we thought it was likely that that virus might have moved into people at some point in time. And so we hypothesized that there would be a group of viruses perhaps in people that would be more closely related to the monkey virus.

WOODRUFF: Do you know for a fact that AIDS came from animals, from monkeys to humans?

Dr. KANKI: I don't think it's ever possible to say that we know for a fact. I think that most of the scientific evidence at this point, especially with the discovery of HTLV-4, leads us to believe that it moved from the monkeys in the presence of the virus STLV-3 into people.

WOODRUFF: Is it just a coincidence now that this other team of researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris appeared to make a similar announcement today, or what?

Dr. KANKI: I really don't know enough about the data that the Pasteur Institute has announced to comment on that.

WOODRUFF: I read in one story that some of the people working with your research project said that they felt the Paris announcement had been speeded up because there was so much competition between the two.

Dr. KANKI: Well, it's certainly a competitive field. But I think that the major goal is obviously to develop a vaccine, and I'll just be very interested to hear more about Dr. Montagnier's discovery.

WOODRUFF: So you don't know at this point whether what they found is the same as what --

Dr. KANKI: No, not at all.

WOODRUFF: What is the next step for you in the type research you're doing? Do you continue to try to find a virus that's even closer to AIDS, or do you work with what you have?

Dr. KANKI: I guess the answer is that we do both. We'll continue to look for other viruses that we believe will be the progression from HTLV-4 into the more pathogenic HTLV-3. At the same time, we'll do more detailed protein studies to determine those conserved regions that exist between the two viruses, to try and get a handle on what would be the best vaccine.

WOODRUFF: Are you personally optimistic that we're going to one day find a cure or a prevention?

Dr. KANKI: Oh, yes. I think we will.

WOODRUFF: Why are you so optimistic?

Dr. KANKI: I think that we have a large, enthusiastic group of researchers throughout the world that are working very hard at trying to develop a vaccine, and we've made tremendous progress inthe last two years.

WOODRUFF: Dr. Phyllis Kanki, thank you for being with us.

Dr. KANKI: You're welcome. The Kitchen Band

LEHRER: Finally tonight, a marvelous story about some marvelous people in Alta Vista, Kansas, who make marvelous music. The storyteller is essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City Times.

JIM FISHER, Kansas City Times: Ever think about common denominators for small-town America? Not peaceful streets or water towers or farm implement dealers, but what's really ordinary out here in Alta Vista, like thousands of other small towns, is old people. Not golden agers or senior citizens, the current catch phrases for being old. Old people. Being called old in Alta Vista isn't an insult. People up in years, people who've stayed, people who in a lot of cases live in cookie-cutter-type structures the bureaucrats just love to call retirement housing. And people gather, really because there's no place else to go, in the nearby community centers, to talk or just sit or have a hot meal. Here in Alta Vista, the community center is federally subsidized. But lately, with budget cuts, there hasn't been enough money to pay all the center's utility bills. So some of the women quilt, selling their labors for $85 each to make up the difference.

Others make music. Wondrous music. This is the 25-member Alta Vista Senior Swingers Kitchen Band. That's Amanda Andres with a kazoo. She's 97. Over the right is Hugo Simonton with his percussion instrument, a washtub hand(?). He's 91. Bill Nace is 76. He plays the washboard. And that's Pam Gordon, a spring chicken of 35, conducting with a kitchen spoon. She got the band going a year ago, when the when the line of march in a parade here seemed slim. Ten old-timers got up on a hay wagon; the Kitchen Band was born.

PAM GORDON: Oh, it's super. They -- I don't know, they just look forward -- it's their lives. It really has become their life. They live for this.

FISHER: They practice once a week, and make trips to play for their peers in other simple Kansas towns, such as Junction City, 25 miles up the road. For months they've been knocking audiences in the aisles. Nothing fancy, just standards. "The Saints Go Marching In." "Easter Parade." Kazoos and washboards, washpans and pot lids, sanding, and blocks and whistles. Even a butter churn filled with popcorn, and an old milking machine cups. And afterwards, applause.

Cynics may say there's no fool like an old fool. You'll even hear that phrase among band members, usually followed with a laugh. But there's something else here: courage. The very real courage to be old. To get up in the morning and wonder about the assorted aches and pains. To miss the loved one you've lived with for years and who now is gone. To have the courage to play in a kitchen band. For surely our bodies will fail us all, eventually, no matter what science does. Maybe the Senior Swingers of Alta Vista, Kansas, have found the real answer. Not a cure for cancer or heart disease or a halt to aging. Maybe all any of us should hope for is to someday, somewhere, have a kitchen band to play in.

WOODRUFF: Turning now to a final look at today's top stories. The Senate tonight passed the administration's $100 million contra aid package. The vote on the final pro-administration amendment was 53-47. President Reagan says Nicaraguan officials lied when they denied they had troops in Honduras. And the U.S. Sixth Fleet sailed out of the Gulf of Sidra today. Navy officials said they have finished their exercises in the gulf claimed by Libya.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night,Judy. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.